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Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Humanists, says the BHA, "are atheists and agnostics who ... base our ethics on the goals of human welfare, happiness and fulfillment". I'll drink to that.

But if humanists are really keen on human welfare, happiness and fulfillment why is so much humanist discussion about religion?

Religion is, of course, inimical to human welfare in many ways. But it's not the biggest obstacle. I think humanists should spend more time on the other obstacles. Science, both physical and social, can help us recognise and address them. Here are my top three threats to human welfare - chosen partly for the roles that science and engineering play in understanding and addressing them.

First, climate change. The world is already 0.6 degrees warmer than before the industrial revolution and a rise to two degrees above is as near certain as any forecast can be. The change has already thinned the polar ice, increased the melting of glaciers and brought drought to east Africa and floods to Bangladesh. Without science we would not understand the causes nor the urgency of the need.

As humanists we should, and mostly do I think, accept the science and the moral case for action. For humanists in developed countries - most of us - that means accepting that its our emissions that have caused the problem and who therefore have the greatest need to change.

But though science gives us understanding it is only politics that can deliver the changes - in behaviour and technology - that we need. Humanists should be actively engaged in both the debates and the political campaigns. Are we?

Second, drug prohibition. Illegal drugs such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin are certainly harmful to at least some of their users. For 90 years our response to this has been prohibition. We made possession and trade illegal and launched a war on drugs. It is a war that we are losing - possibly have lost.

In the developed world the range of street drugs has been increasing for decades whilst the drugs themselves are very affordable. In Mexico the war between drug cartels has taken 2,000 lives this year alone. In Afghanistan poppy cultivation funds the Taliban and makes the conflict even more intractable. In the UK drug addiction is a major cause of petty crime whilst in US cities it's a major cause of the horrendous murder rate.

And most of this is not due to drugs but to drug prohibition. The prohibition of street drugs makes no more sense than the prohibition of alcohol - which the USA tried with such ignominious results. Short of a police state, and perhaps even with one, we cannot stop drug use. We can, however, reduce the harm done by adulterated drugs, gang violence and drug-related crime and prostitution. These benefits are so great that this ought to be a moral imperative for humanists.

This is a case where humanist libertarian and humanitarian principles point in the same direction as the economics. (The UK Thinktank Transform has estimated the economic benefit for the UK at £4-14B where the uncertainty reflects the weakness of current evidence.)

Here, I repeat, is an issue on which principle, reason, economics and compassion together point to a radical conclusion that was first discussed in Humanist circles at least 40 years ago. (We can even expect that the religious will oppose us!) So why has the movement not made this issue its own?

Thirdly, economic inequality. Research over several decades has shown that economic inequality creates a wide variety of social ills including mental and physical illness, drug abuse, obesity, premature death, teenage births, violence, prison population and a lack of social mobility. It even, I've argued previously, drives people to religion.

Since humanists have generally favoured equality over hierarchy this issue ought to appeal to them. Where, then, is the humanist campaign for greater equality? Where, even, are humanists discussing it?

Humanism, especially when informed by science, has the potential to generate genuinely radical initiatives for major social improvement. Perhaps we no longer believe in major social improvement.

Whatever the reason we are certainly not advancing such views. Indeed, mostly we aren't even discussing the issues.

Humanists4Science

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About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S isfor humanists with an active interest in science.We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Jim Al-Khalili (BHA President)

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Dick Taverne

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

David Papineau on Materialism

'Our world is a fully material world. We don’t need to go outside Physics to understand the constitution of the Universe. Anything non-material would be epiphenomena and could never have any effect on the material world.' David Papineau (video) on Materialism

Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President) on Scientific Method

'Scientific method is a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.' (Photo: Chris Street, 2006)

Peter Atkins (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The scientific method is the only reliable method of achieving knowledge. It displaces ignorance without destroying wonder.'

'Science can deal with all the serious questions that have troubled mankind for millennia' Peter Atkins

'My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate." Peter Atkins

Stephen Fry (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Reason is almost akin to superstition, ... reason must be tested, testing is the very basis of science.'

Matt Ridley (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it.'

Stephen Law (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Empirical science is possibly the only tool ... for understanding the world around us'.

Lewis Wolpert (BHA Vice President) on Scientific Method

'Science is the best way to understand the world, for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.'

Harry Kroto (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The methods of science are manifestly effective, having made massive humanitarian contributions to society. It is this very effectiveness which the purveyors of mystical philosophies attack, because they recognise in it the chief threat to the belief-based source of their power and financial reward.'